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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - For many people in this town the North represents adventure, an extended vacation, a temporary hideout or just somewhere to work hard for a while in the faint hope of splitting some day with a few grand in a sock. But for some, North is home.

Pat Braden shares words and music during NACC's storytelling festival in 2006. His work as a storyteller has matured into a 90-minute solo show that mixes music and spoken word called North is Home. The show runs at NACC tonight and Saturday beginning at 8 p.m. each evening. - NNSL file photo

Musician and storyteller Pat Braden moved to Yellowknife with his family as a very small child in 1964. His own children are now grown and Braden is still here. As he embarks on his fourth decade as a professional musician, he's pondering the question: "Why do I call the North home?"

He'll share his personal meditations with audiences in Yellowknife tonight and Saturday during a solo narrative performance titled North is Home.

Blending intimate stories and songs written over three decades, Braden unpacks his Northern experiences and relationships and the memories and emotions they've left behind.

"Over many years it's always been a real love-hate relationship with this town I love to hate and hate to love," he said.

Braden's voice takes listeners back into the influential wonders of childhood, the excitement of adolescence and through the gentle joys and unexpected losses that keep adulthood interesting - all from a distinctly Northern vantage. His words craft a sensitive account of the human condition that is at once personal and universal.

Braden embraced storytelling in 2003 with the release of his CD From the Fire, a selection of original stories told by the author and through readings by George Tuccaro, Diane Brookes and other prominent Northerners.

While he is still new to the role of spoken word artist, his passion for music stretches back to childhood.

At age eight, little Pat Braden heard guitarist Archie Louttit performing on stage at the Legion. At that moment, he said, he knew music would play a part in his life. He understood the power, mystery and beauty of the stage.

In junior high at William McDonald he began his musical education playing the drums. In high school at Sir John Franklin he initially got stuck playing horn parts, which kind of sucked, he said.

However, he eventually fanangled an opportunity to pick up the bass and under the direction of music teacher Roy Menagh launched into the early stage of a lifelong career.

In school he played in concerts such as Handel's Messiah and also as part of a 15-piece swing band called The Swinging Moons that covered big band greats like Tommy Dorsey and Glen Miller.

"The variety of music that I got to play before I even left Yellowknife to go to music school was really, really broad," he said.

Braden also enjoyed an extracurricular education. He joined guitarist Sandy Wilson for jazz gigs at The Cantina and the Hoist Room, which occupied the spaces where Harley's Hard Rock Saloon and Surly Bob's, respectively, now sit.

The teenager soon found himself in the band Friends, playing The Gallery and the Rec Hall and other venues six nights a week alongside a revolving circle of older musicians.

At a CBC radio recording session backing Fort Smith singer Randy Hendricks, Braden spied a 1930s string bass concealed by a canvas bag tucked in a corner of the studio. During his next visit to the station two months later the vintage instrument still sat in the same spot.

"Well this is a crime," Braden said he thought. "Nobody's touched it."

He hunted down the owner, a city architect named Hans Barford who used to play big band jazz in Europe. By washing thousands of dishes at The Explorer Hotel, Braden earned enough to buy the old bass along with a fender amp and his first electric bass.

After graduating, Braden studied string bass at Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton, learning from veterans of the jazz age.

During his three years of study he performed with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and Canadian music icons Tommy Banks and the late Big Miller, returning to Yellowknife each summer to play in various rock bands.

Following college in 1984, Braden experimented with punk and pop groups in Vancouver before plugging back into Yellowknife's music scene.

In 1987 he began a second career as a stay-at-home dad while working stages at night. His musicianship expanded at this time with the addition of a unique new instrument called the Chapman Stick.

Braden immersed himself in the theory and practice of the 10-string instrument, which allows for sophisticated compositions that can blend bass, melody and chording simultaneously. He studied the stick at intensive National Guitar Summit workshops in Connecticut and California in 1989 and 1991.

A few years ago, Braden decided his career needed to turn a new page.

"I'd already been playing in the bars since 1977, so I had my 25 years playing in the bars," he said. "It was really hard for me to get motivated to put something together to go back into the bars."

After seeing the potential of mixing spoken word with music at a festival in Whitehorse, Braden headed down his present path toward storytelling accompanied by the stick.

He has shared versions of his one-man show in the Yukon, B.C., New Brunswick and on national CBC radio's Concerts in Demand.

Now he's bringing his show home. North is Home begins tonight at 8 p.m. and he'll perform again on Saturday evening at Northern Arts and Cultural Centre.